i.e., the Tolbooth; others were held there in 1449
and 1459. In the latter the Scottish word
?Tolbooth,? meaning a tax-house, occurs for the
first time ; ?Hence,? says Wilson, ? a much older,
and probably larger erection must therefore have
existed on the site of the western portion of the
Tolbooth, the ruinous state of which led to the
royal command for its demolition in 1561-not
a century after the date we are disposed to
assign to the oldest portion of the building that
remained till 1817, and which, though decayed and
time-worn, was so far from being ruinous even then,
that it proved a work of great labour to demolish
its solid masonry.? In the ?Diurnal of Occurrents,?
it is recorded that in 1571 ?the tour of the add
TuZbuyth was tane doun.?
The ornamental north gable of the Tolbooth was
never seen without a human head stuck thereon in
?the good old times,? In 1581. ?the prick on the
highest stone? bore the head of the Regent
Morton, in 1650 the head of the gallant Montrose,
till ten years subsequently it was replaced by that
of his enemy Argyle.
In 1561 the Tolbooth figures in one of those
tulzies or rows so common in the Edinburgh of
those days ; but in this particular instance we see a
distinct foreshadowing of the Porteous mob of the
eighteenth century, by the magistrates forbidding a
I? Robin Hood.? This was the darling May game
of Scotland as well as England, and, under the
pretence offrolic, gave an unusual degree of licence;
but the Scottish Calvinistic clergy, with John Knox
? at their head, and backed by the authority of the
magistrates of Edinburgh, who had of late been
chosen exclusively from that party, found it impossible
to control the rage of the populace when
deprived of the privilege of having a Robin Hood,
with the Abbot of Unreason and the Queen of the
May.( Thus it czme to pass, that in May, 1561,
when a man in Edinburgh was chosen as ? Robin
Hood and Lord of Inobedience,? most probably
because he was a frolicsome, witty, and popular
fellow, and passed through the city with a great
number of followers, noisily, and armed, with a
banner displayed, to the Castle Hill, the magistrates
caught one of his companions, ? a cordiner?s servant,?
named Janies Gillon, whom they condemned
to be hanged on the z ~ s t of July.
On that day, as he was to be conveyed to the
gibbet, it was set up with the ladder against it
in the usual fashion, when the craftsmen rushed
into the streets, clad in their armour, with
spears, axes, and hand-guns. They seized the
Provost by main force of arms, together with
two Bailies, David Symmer and Adam Fullarton,
and thrusting them into Alexander Guthrie?s
writing booth, left them there under a. guard.
The rest marched to the cross, broke the gibbet
to pieces, and beating in the doors of the Tolbooth
with sledge-hammers, under the eyes of
the magistrates, who were warded close by,
they brought forth the prisoner, whom they conveyed
ic~ triumph down the street to the Nether
Bow Port. . Finding the latter closed, they passed
up the street again. By this time the magistrates
had taken shelter in the Tolbooth, from whence
one,of them fired a pistol and wounded one of the
mob. ?That being done,? says the Diurnal of
Occurrents, ? there was naething but tak and day!
that is, the one part shooting forth and casting
stones, the other part shooting hagbuts in again, and
sae the craftsmen?s servants held them (conducted
themselves) continually frae three hours afternoon,
while (till) aucht at even, and never ane man of the
toun steirit to defend their provost and bailies.?
The former, who was Thomas Maccakean, of
Clifton Hall, contrived to open a communication
with the constable of the Castle, who came with
an armed party to act as umpire ; and through that
officer it was arranged ?that the provost and
bailies should discharge all manner of actions
whilk they had against the said crafts-childer in
ony time bygone ;? and this being done and proclaimed,
the armed trades peacefully disbanded,
and the magistrates were permitted to leave the
Tolbooth.
In 1539 the sixth Parliament of James VI. met
there. The Estates rode through the streets;
? the crown was borne before his Majesty by
Archibald Earl of Angus, the sceptre by Colin
Earl of Argyle, Chancellor, and the sword of
honour, by Robert Earl of Lennox.? Moyse adds,
when the Parliament was dissolved, twelve days
after, the king again rode thither in state. In
1581 Morton was tried and convicted in the hall
for the murder of Darnley ; the King?s Advocate
on that occasion was Robert Crichton of Elliock,
father of the ?? Admirable Crichton.?
Caldenvood records some curious instances of
the king?s imbecility among his fierce and turbulent
couttiers. On January 7th, 1590, when he was
coming down the High Street from the Tolbooth,
where he had been administering justice, two of
his attendants, Lodovick Duke of Lennox (hereditary
High Admiral and Great Chamberlain), and
Alexander Lord Home, meeting the Laird of
Logie, with whom they had a quarrel, though he
was valet of the royal chamber, attacked him
sword in hand, to the alarm of James, who retired
into an adjacent close ; and six days after, when he
